Cryptomathic has today announced that it has initiated litigation in the courts of Oslo, Norway against BBSAS for patent infringement.

Cryptomathic has alleged infringement of its patent in BBS' BankID products related to digital signatures and user authentication using a central server for key storage and signature generation. The patent-in-suit is one of Cryptomathic's fundamental patents used for securing e-banking and e-government transactions, and is a world-leading version of a mobile, secure electronic and digital signature which cannot be repudiated.

In its complaint, Cryptomathic alleges that BBS has infringed and continues to infringe, contributes to and induces the infringement of Cryptomathic's patent by making, using, offering for sale and selling products and services without being licensed by Cryptomathic to do so. BSS's BankID solution is used by approximately 1.75 million end-users to authenticate themselves by having messages or content signed centrally on their behalf with individual private keys.

"We have invested heavily in secure, mobile signature solutions based on two-factor authentication which offer high security as well as ease and convenience to the end-user. Our approach is based on research and development carried out over many years, and we feel strongly that we deserve fair acknowledgement from companies and organisations using our patented technology," said Professor Peter Landrock, Executive Chairman of the Board of Cryptomathic. "This core technology contributed to Cryptomathic earning a nomination as one of the 40 most innovative companies in the world at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2003. We prefer to resolve such issues through commercial discussions without litigation but have so far been unsuccessful with BBS. Hence we are left with no alternative but to file suit."

Cryptomathic is represented by Grette, one of Norway's leading law firms with specialty in Intellectual Property and IT.